


Language Lessons, 6: mattang (1200 words)

by ImpOfPerversity



Series: Language Lessons [6]
Category: Baroque Cycle - Neal Stephenson, Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: 1 Sentence Fiction, Languages, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-02-07
Updated: 2005-02-07
Packaged: 2018-11-12 12:07:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11161524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImpOfPerversity/pseuds/ImpOfPerversity





	Language Lessons, 6: mattang (1200 words)

  
Jack Shaftoe had been half a year on the _Black Pearl_ , now, and he had caught himself, more than once, making that mistake that had proved fatal (or at least injurious) to so many Vagabonds, wastrels and other gentlemen of fortune that he'd known: he had assumed he knew everything of significance about his situation, his expectations and the company he kept, that company most especially including Captain Jack Sparrow, the whole _raison_ for Jack's presence on board this infamous pirate galleon, and had assumed that -- while there were indubitably new _nuances_ of behaviour ( _sayit sayit JackmyJack, sodomy and buggery and o what larkery!_ trilled his familiar Imp, flitting unseen from spar to shoulder to stay, all full of weathery energy) to be explored in the most convivial and excellent company of Sparrow, whose hands and mouth and, o, entire body promised delights unending, and whose company out on deck, or high in the rigging, or on whatever speck of land they'd lately set foot on, was not at all to be sniffed at either -- he knew his love pretty well now, knew his ways and habits and traits and tics; oh, Jack loved watching 'em all, for Sparrow drew his eye easier than any painted Houndsditch whore, any accomplished Actress, and Jack, once looking, could not look away: but today, this morning, he looked on Sparrow and frowned, for Sparrow, 'twas clear, had gone quite mad: "Captain Sparrow," began Jack, head cocked inquisitively, "may I enquire, mere landlubber that I am, why you're waving about a corn-dolly right in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, which," he added, steadying himself with one hand on a halyard, "I might point out ain't so very Pacific at the moment?"; "I'd noticed that," said Sparrow, turning a gleaming smile upon Jack; he looked at once elemental and in his element, spray fountaining behind him as the _Pearl_ forged her way on through waves as green and solid as hills, but he was still holding the peculiar object aloft, gazing intently at it; to Jack it looked like nothing as much as the corn-figures that the farmers in England had plaited out of the last sheaf of every field, often very shortly before the Vagabond hordes had descended to glean what grain had fallen, or been overlooked, or -- on occasion -- insufficiently hidden away, but the thing in Sparrow's hand was crafted out of sticks and shells, all lashed together with some vegetal fibre, a little like a cross (but Sparrow was not a religious man, save in the manner of oaths and exclamations) or one of those quadrants used by gunners: "so, Jack," he said equably, nodding towards the wickery nonsense, "what's that you're holding, there?" and did not miss Sparrow's sharp smile, and his quick flickering glance that checked if any other was in earshot (they were not) and then, above the racket of the wind and waves, he said, "they call it **mattang** , round these parts; _some_ say it's magic," and he rolled his eyes, "but 'twill lead us safe to land," though at this last assertion his gaze slid from Jack Shaftoe's, and Jack understood it to be a voiced _hope_ rather than any _certainty_ : still, he'd not call Sparrow on it, not amid the storm and with Stone and Cotton all po-faced like that, and so he said only, "A native map, is it, then?" and Sparrow -- glancing up at the topsails, and then out at the roaring admixture of air and water that was their horizon -- said over his shoulder, "nay, it shows the way the water lies about any island: and every island in this vast ocean -- " he waved the mattang about, and Jack saw it was a sturdy thing " -- has its village and its people, and _they_ find their way fair: so I reckon it does its job, eh?": and Jack, seeing that this was not a time for idle chatter (seeing, too, that most of the boys were aloft, reefing urgently as the wind swung round to the south), just nodded, and said, "Tell me later, eh?": and, by evening -- the _Black Pearl_ anchored in the curving embrace of a green, steep-sided island, with grinning dark-skinned folk swarming aboard, watched every moment by the pirate crew as they traded their fruit, their liquor and their women for the odd nail or polished scrap of tin -- would've forgotten the **mattang** completely, save that Sparrow brought it down into their cabin with him; "You said you wanted to know, Jack," he said, and something low in Jack's body twisted and leapt in joy at the look in Sparrow's eyes, "and I think I've time to _teach_ you: see, this is the island, here," and he indicated the shell at the centre of the contraption: "Handy that you happened to have the, what's-its-name, the mattang for this very place," observed Jack: "No, no, this is _any_ island," said Sparrow: "Not much of a map, then," argued Jack, with the familiar (and rather pleasant) sensation that another few shreds of ignorance were about to be illumined, "if it don't show anywhere _else_ ;" "Ah, but it ain't a map of the _land_ ," Sparrow said earnestly, "not like your European maps and charts: this here's a map of the _ocean_ , of the way the swell flows around any island, be it ne'er so small and far away from the rest;" and Jack Shaftoe, comprehending now, said, "Like when you chuck a pebble in a stream -- or, nay, when there's a stick mid-stream, and the water must flow round it, eh?" and oh, cleverness was its own reward with Sparrow smiling at him like that, commending his quickness; Jack had observed before that Sparrow's congratulations always tended towards the _physical_ in nature, and indeed he was all of a sudden up close to Jack, his hands draped over Jack's shoulders, giving him that Look; "And, Mr Shaftoe," he said, all low and soft, "they say the islanders find their way from place to place, not by charts and stars like Christians, but by _feeling_ their way, feeling the way the water moves around some distant shore," and Jack was terribly tempted to protest that Sparrow was not, in fact, using any mysterious Device to navigate his way around Jack Shaftoe, but only Custom; but instead he closed his eyes, and let his hands and his body guide him, and could feel Sparrow's familiar body, all taut and curving and warm, pressing and moving against him as though Sparrow were the Ocean and Jack the Land, which similitude led Jack to other pleasing images; himself as the fixed point in the centre of Sparrow's tumultuous world, Jack Sparrow as a kind of whirlpool all around him (as sailors in the far North spoke of, dragging men down to their dooms), or, nay, each one of them an unseen Disruption in the other's life, changing everything, changing a vast waste (for such had Jack's life been, and Sparrow's just as directionless) to something all stirred up and transformed and curved around a fixed (and yet far freer) point, an anchor, a home, a heart.


End file.
